Italian Tomato and Lamb Feast (lots of photos)

Yes, I’m lazy for not writing any posts this weekend. Saturday I was at the Tech game, watching the Jackets stomp Southern Miss and continuing our dominance of the SEC. :-)

On Sunday, my justification for not writing a post is that as soon as I awoke, I was planning, purchasing, and cooking from that point forward. There was a brief interlude where I borrowed a bike from a friend for an upcoming triathlon, and I was trying to figure out how the hell to clip my feet into the bike without falling on my face. I was almost successful.

Three reasons I wanted to do a big meal:

1. Sunday is my favorite day for cooking, particularly Italian food
2. My dad went on vacation so he gave me 30+ ripe tomatoes from his garden
3. The mozzarella cheese making supplies I ordered from the interwebs arrived Friday

Friday I used ~ 1/3 of the tomatoes making salsa,  but I still had a bunch left. I made the same pico de gallo I always make, and again tried a roasted tomato salsa. This time I used a different recipe from Epicurious. It was chunkier, and very spicy.

Moving along…here was the menu for evening.

• Appetizer: Caprese salad with dad’s tomatoes and homemade mozzarella
• Primi: Fresh fettuccine with chopped tomato and lemon sauce
  
• Secondi: Roast Italian rack of lamb with new potatoes and tomato bake
• Dessert: German chocolate cake

I have tons of photos so I will try not to be too verbose and will attempt to move through them quickly.

First I started with the mozzarella. I got the bug to try this after reading the blog Foodie with Family. All you really need is milk, citric acid, and rennet.

The blog’s author, Rebecca, has written up a very simple recipe, though I managed to screw it up. All you have to do is heat the milk and citric acid mixture to 88 degrees, then add the rennet, let it sit, and then go through the process of separating the curds from the whey.

In the picture below, I have removed the milk (which has curdled) from the heat and am letting it separate from the whey.

Back to my mistake – I am an idiot and added the rennet mixture first instead of the citric acid. I just grabbed the wrong solution and dropped it in without thinking. I was able to continue with the recipe, but the cheese never really adhered to itself very well during the “kneading” process. I ended up with a clump of cheese that looked like ricotta.

After this botched attempt I emailed Rebecca and she was kind enough to help guide me in the ways of the cheese, all without making me feel incompetent. Rebecca confirmed that we could call my failed attempt “ricotta” if we wanted to do so. I can’t express how cool I think it is that I can email the author and then receive feedback and advice almost immediately. We have gone back and forth a few times via email and it’s awesome to me that people are so friendly and will spend their valuable time helping others.

Luckily, I had more milk and tried again (this time a half batch). I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, so below is a photo of the mozzarella balls chillin’ in some water.

I will definitely try this again sometime this week, hopefully in conjunction with some pizza. I will be sure to post more on that later.

Here is a picture of the finished caprese salad.

Aaron’s professional opinion.

Next we had the pasta coming up. I handmade the pasta, rolled out the sheets, then cut the pasta and let it sit for a couple of hours.

Close up view….

The sauce for the pasta was awesome. I got the recipe here. To summarize, it was an uncooked sauce of chopped tomatoes, shallots, garlic, parsley, basil, lemon zest, lemon juice, and olive oil. The lemon was very apparent, but not overpowering. It was key that I made this 3 hours ahead of time and let it sit at room temperature.

I served it with a Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc.

One of the sides for the main course was a tomato bake, which I found here while I was looking up info on cooking times/temps for lamb. It was simple and fast to prep. It was a layer of sliced tomatoes, topped with chopped onions, then topped with a mixture of breadcrumbs with rosemary and parsley, then this layering process was repeated two more times. When it was ready to be cooked I topped it with a healthy dose of cubed butter.

Meanwhile, back in the fridge, the lamb and potatoes were marinading separately in a mixture of olive oil, rosemary, Italian parsley, garlic, and salt & pepper. After we ate the pasta, I threw the tomato bake in the oven and started getting the lamb ready to cook. 

The tomato bake was already in the oven at 400, then I kicked up the heat to 450 and put the lamb and potatoes in the oven.

Fifteen minutes or so later, the internal temp of the lamb was 120 so I took it out and started plating.

I served this with a 2005 Earthworks Shiraz. I’ve had this with lamb before, and I think it pairs with it really well. This wine brings the funk, with dirty/rich chewy flavors, and some bite on the finish with a healthy dose of anise.

The cake was really unnecessary, but I just wanted a reason to drink a glass of Sauternes. This is really cheap Sauternes, and it was just ok. It’s only the second one I’ve ever had, and like the first one I tried, this was a one-trick-pony of intense pineapple flavors. I look forward to trying a rockin’ Sauternes one day.

This meal was quite a bit of work, though it was very manageable. I was never rushed and was glad I took the time to do a lot of the prep earlier in the day. The lamb and salad were good, but the tomato bake and the pasta dish were above average to excellent in my opinion. I do have high hopes for the cheese though, and I can’t wait to make some progress with that!

Tagged as: cheese, lamb, mozzarella, pasta, salsa, tomato